Monday, July 30, 2012

I am not an academic researcher, I am not a journalist, I am a novelist who has known the Gypsy people for most of my life. I am a European by origin who has grown up in World War II. Then too people were persecuted and nailed to the cross, anybody in Germany who did not agree with the Nazis. We were lucky insofar that we were never caught and trapped in those death camps at the mercy of common men turned full-time abusers. Through massacres and ever present death, what gave us wings was hope in a world on the other side of war.

I am sure it is what held Romanian Gypsies/Roma together and going. In Romania they were enslaved until 1865, again I am no academic researcher, but that is what I have read over and over - then pushed out of sight into abject poverty and neglect, no human rights, no opportunity. But, and this is merely human, I am convinced that hope kept them believing in a better future, somewhere down the line.

Europe Unites. The barriers to their prisons FINALLY opened. The day, I am sure, they had been praying for over a century has become reality. Their leaders, those with knowledge of the world on the other side of the invisible barbed wire that has kept them closed off from the world at large, warns them. They do not have the tools to survive in the modern world, they never had access to them.

Again, I compare their destiny to my own. Walking out of the world of war where hope had made life despite it all even beautiful at moments, we walked into the aftermath, where a whole culture lay bombed to the ground and the horrible truth of Nazi persecutions now lay bare, destroying all remaining beliefs in humanity.

Again, racial hatred is out of the bag, is spreading as Europe is nailing her Gypsies to the cross.

What if……….British TV were to arrive into the States wanting to create a reality show on The American Family of Today! What if they chose Vermont, a state in tough economic shape? There they decide to choose, not the most enterprising among the locals running their own small businesses, not those working two jobs to keep their families afloat, but some of the ones perpetually on welfare, fat women with babies, often officially divorced (but not separated) to increase welfare checks, their men out in the woods shooting guns. Of course those welfare recipients would be more than happy to comply = extra money, little effort. Now let us image that particular reality show would turn into an instant hit in Great Britain. Would it be far-fetched to assume Americans would be enraged at such a distortion?

So are the Gypsies/Roma , as well as Gypsy activists viewing an off-the-wall Gypsy family being portrayed as your average Roma family, it being clear to anyone who really knows Roma, that they are acting, making money with a performance that has little to do with the life of most Gypsies I have known in Europe or the U.S . Petitions were sent to me to ban the show, pointing out that while this outrageous distortion is being broadcast, Gypsies/Roma are persecuted in Europe almost like a rerun of the holocaust . Then……………

I talked to a friend, one who knows more about the life of Roma in America than anybody else I know, is more dedicated to fighting for a better future for these people who have been persecuted since their arrival into Western culture more than 700 years ago. To my surprise he said to me: On the contrary, maybe this will help bring the problems of the Roma people out in the open. Find out the truth behind the killer prejudice. Shine a light on persecutions that are spread all over Europe, but silenced by the press.